Background Statement
Oil and gas development, and particularly the relatively new technology of high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"), has expanded across Colorado faster than reasonable scientific assessment, monitoring, and regulation of the industry.
Seeing the consequences of development on communities like Rifle and Silt, a group of concerned North Fork Valley residents began to meet and formed Citizens for a Healthy Community in 2009. CHC represents a population unwilling to accept oil and gas development by an industry that cannot be held accountable for impacts to human health and the environment.
CHC envisions a day when:
1. Delta County Region's food, air, and water-shed are no longer threatened by large-scale industrial oil and gas operations
3. Elected officials, agency personnel, and citizens use science as the basis for decision-making.
4. Regulatory agencies err on the side of caution and protecting public health by denying a proposed action when scientific uncertainty exists regarding the potential harm of the action.
5. One industry is not allowed to supplant another (i.e, invasive gas and oil development does not have the right to ruin agricultural and tourism based industries).